Things That Never Die

The pure, the bright, the beautiful
that stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth,
The longing after something lost,
The spirit's yearning cry,
The striving after better hopes—
These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid
A brother in his need;
A kindly word in grief's dark hour
That proves a friend indeed;
The plea for mercy softly breathed,
When justice threatens high,
The sorrow of a contrite heart—
These things shall never die.

Let nothing pass, for every hand
Must find some work to do,
Lose not a chance to waken love—
Be firm and just and true.
So shall a light that cannot fade
Beam on thee from on high,
And angel voices say to thee—

"These things shall never die."

-Charles Dickens

One of the pieces we're working on at the moment has taken Mr. Dickens' words and simply set them to a lovely flowing melody that gets passed around the different sections. I'd not heard this one before, and I haven't figured out how to read the whole thing yet. Just a line - what do I think of as "the pure, the bright, the beautiful?" The longing after something lost, I can grasp that concept, for what it means to me in my life. I remember the friend who was there for me when my friend died, or my own deep sorrow when I knew I'd done wrong and wished to make it better. I'm still learning what it means - really MEANS - to be firm. To be just. To be true - true to what? I want to ask.

I keep going over it, a line at a time.

I read a piece of it, and get into that line, or that thought, and thinking of everything else that we have that fades or is destroyed or somehow lost...there's a lot of hope to be found in believing that the future world, whatever it's made of, will still have these.